Neuquen or waiting for the bus...

At the moment were tired, dirty and bored. We are in Neuquen, the uninspiring little provincial capital of the lake district. It´s not that it´s a terrible city or anything, there´s just not a lot going on. It´s hot, gray and dry and really nothing to write home about. The highlight was playing two rounds of ten-pin bowling for 16 pesos. Our bus for Mendoza leaves at 20h00. We spent our last day in San Martin waiting for the bus. To use up the time we checked our bags into some lockers and then went for a lovely 1h30 horseride in the forests around San Martin led by a Mapuche Indian guide. It was really nice and SO beautiful. We suck at horse riding, though... After that we had some more freshly baked empanadas at a local restaurant. If you don´t know what empanadas are, it is a DELICIOUS little pie filled with meat or vegetables that you can buy anywhere for cheap. It is the perfect snack. Add two or three and it makes a good meal! We finally caught the bus at 19h. When we arrived at Junin de los Andes, an even smaller town than San Martin, we checked into our hotel. It was a bit more expensive but wonderfully worth it. Our room had a balcony overlooking a beautiful little brook filled with trout (hmmm...), and the breakfast was huge. I had three cups of coffee... We had to catch the bus at 00h45 (this morning), so we had a lot of hours to kill. We left our things at the hostel, packed a light bag and rented some bicycles. We spent the first part of our bike tour climbing an Andean pass. It was terrible! I was so tired I almost threw up. The thin mountain air didn´t help. We eventually got to the top and the ride down was spectacular. Worth every drop of sweat. Then we tackled a really hard off-road route. Rocks, mud, soft sand, narrow paths, low branches and thorny bushes. Being an extremely experienced mountainbiker I stopped dead when I saw the mud, tried to put my foot down, found only a steep embankment and then tumbled down the slope with the bike on top of me. When Lloyd came by I was lying with my feet in the air and my head in a ditch! Luckily I didn´t get hurt, just a few bruises and scrapes (and dirt). The whole bike trip was great fun and we´ll definitely do it again. After that we climbed on a local bus to the Lanin National Park. The centre piece of this extremely beautiful park is the 3747m Lanin Volcano. This was extremely impressive! We finally got back to Junin after 22h. Just a few more hours to wait. We arrived in Neuquen this morning bleary-eyed and particulary stupid. We can´t speak Spanish when were tired. We found out to our dismay that there were no buses leaving until 20h. That means another all-night bus ride and still no shower! Cheers, Neil